Abstract
While there has been intense discussion of the theories of performativity in
human geography, little has been said about the methodological implications
of the performative turn. This paper suggests visual ethnography as a
suitable methodology for performative geographies, since it focuses
explicitly on the embodied and non-textual performances that bring both
subjectivities and spatialities into being. In order to be able to connect
the observed performances with performativity, a visual ethnography of
performativity needs to be developed that combines visual research methods
with insights about visual culture. By drawing on a visual ethnographic case
study of politicians' identity performances in Ecuador, I show in the
empirical section of this paper how the filmed identity performances can be
linked and contrasted to hegemonic discourses around masculinity,
femininity, whiteness, and indigenousness represented in Ecuador's visual
culture. This visual ethnography reveals the ambivalence of their identity
performances in which the politicians are constantly torn between responding
to and simultaneously resisting hegemonic discourses around the masculinity
and whiteness of the political.
Citation
ID:
198928
Ref Key:
schurr2013geographicavisual